[SMM Weekly Review] The spot price of cobalt intermediate products continued to rise this week

This week, the spot price of cobalt intermediate products continued to maintain an upward trend. Early in the week, there were some transactions near 12.3 in the market. However, as cobalt salt prices rose, some enterprises reported that purchase offers near 12.3-12.4 could not be closed in the latter part of mid-week. On the supply side, most enterprises maintained a bullish outlook and still suspended quoting, while a few enterprises further raised their offers. On the demand side, smelters faced challenges such as production cost losses and weak downstream demand. Given the uncertain future situation, most enterprises focused on consuming their own inventory, while some smelters with lower inventory levels inquired about prices in the market. However, due to their offers still being lower than those of sellers, market transactions remained limited. Overall, affected by the DRC's extension policy, China's cobalt intermediate products will still face a shortage of raw materials in the future, and there is upward momentum in prices. However, during this process, attention needs to be paid to the inhibition of downstream demand by the rising raw material prices.

SMM New Energy Research Team

Cong Wang 021-51666838

Rui Ma 021-51595780

Disheng Feng 021-51666714

Yanlin Lv 021-20707875

Wenhao Xiao 021-51666872

Zhicheng Zhou 021-51666711